His expression hardened, as if he'd come to a decision. He stuck out his hand. "Gimme the cross."

"I'm doing okay with it."

"No, you ain't." He grabbed her arm. His eyes had a strange look. "Not nearly. Gimme."

"Charlie? What are you doing?" Gia leaned away from him but he was stronger and had a longer reach. He caught hold of the cross and ripped it from her grasp. "Charlie!"

Without a word he bent and began hacking at the hands imprisoning her left leg. As soon as that was free, he grabbed it, lifted it, and placed her foot on his back. Then he went to work on her right leg. When that was free, he lifted her and placed her on the dirt which had now piled to above his knees.

As soon as Gia hit the dirt, new arms emerged like snakes and grabbed her. Charlie immediately went to work on these.

The dirtfall redoubled. Gia could barely see him.

"What about you?" Her throat constricted as she realized what he was up to. "Charlie, you've got to get your feet free!"

"Too late," he said without looking up. He was waist deep in the dirt and kept hacking away at the new hands as soon as they sprouted, allowing Gia to stay atop the rising level of dirt. "Can't get to 'em."

"You can if you do it now! We can both make it."

He shook his head. "Nuh-uh. Then we both be in the same sinkin' boat."

"No!" Gia couldn't, wouldn't let this happen. She began clawing at the dirt around his waist. "We'll take turns! We'll-"

A ghost hand shot up from the loose earth, gripping her wrist and jerking her down. She cried out as her face hit the dirt.

Charlie slashed at the hand, freeing her, then roughly shoved her back.

"See? See?" He was looking at her now and she could see tears in his eyes. His lips trembled as he spoke. "I know what I'm doin', okay? But I don't wanna do it for nothin'! Let it mean somethin', huh?"

"But Charlie-"

At that moment the dirtfall stopped.

Gia looked up, looked around, looked at Charlie. It had ceased as suddenly and mysteriously as it had started. Why?

"Praise the Lord!" Charlie sagged forward. The dirt had piled up to the lower part of his chest. He cradled his head on his arms and spoke toward the ground. "He's delivered us from evil!"

Just then Gia felt the dirt shift under her, felt it change, become finer, grainier. It began to move, surging and flowing like thick fluid.

And rising.

"Oh, no!" Gia cried. "What's happening?"

Charlie straightened and began slashing at the soil as it rose to his armpits.

"Don't know! Please, G.o.d, stop it! Stop it!"

The dirt, though dry, was lapping at him like water, swallowing him, but Gia remained afloat, buoyed on the grainy swells. She cried out and grabbed his free hand, tugging on it, trying to pull him up to her level but he was anch.o.r.ed fast below.

As the soil reached his neck his wide terrified eyes found her, held her, pierced her. "Oh, please, oh, please, Lord, I don't wanna die!"

And then the dirt swirled into his open mouth and he coughed and choked and gagged and writhed, stretching his neck. Gia, crying and whimpering with terror, tugged on his arm but couldn't budge him. The dirt rose past his mouth and into his nostrils, and his eyes were wider, bulging, pleading, and then with a final surge the loose earth rose and engulfed his head, leaving only his raised arm in sight.

Gia screamed and dug at the dirt, frantically pawing at it like a dog as she tried to clear it away from his face.

"Charlie! Charlie, hang on!"

But it was like trying to dig through soup. It flowed around and through her fingers and immediately filled back in behind her hands. She could feel his face, touch his hair but couldn't clear away enough to see him. If only she had a hose or a pipe, something to feed him air until- Suddenly Charlie's other hand broke the surface, still holding the cross. She grabbed the wrist and pulled, throwing her back into it, but nothing! Nothing!

And then as she gripped him she felt agonal tremors radiate through his arms and spread to his hands, saw the fingers straighten, stiffen, drop the cross, claw the air for an instant, then fall limp and still, twitch, then go still once more, and not move again.

"No!" Grief spilled through Gia like acid. She'd met Charlie only twice before and yet he'd given his life for her. She knelt and clutched his cooling hands and cried out in a long, drawn-out wail that trailed off into sobs. "No!"

"I'm sorry." Tara's voice.

Gia looked up. What had been a pit was now a smooth, shallow depression in the earth. Tara stood half a dozen feet away, staring at her, looking as sweet and innocent as ever, but not looking sorry at all.

"Why? This was a good man! He never hurt you or anyone else! How could you kill him?"

Tara stepped closer, her eyes fixed on Gia-not on her face, but her abdomen.

"Because he'd only be in the way."

Gia's grief chilled, sliding toward unease. "In the way... of what?"

"Of what happens next."

Crystals of ice formed in Gia's veins as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

"I don't understand."

Tara smiled. "Your baby becomes my baby."

14.

"No-don't-please!" Bellitto cried, squirming in the chair as Jack pressed the tip of the silencer over his left knee. He stared down at the sheet of paper in his lap. "Please! I've never seen that before in my life!"

"Lie!"

"No! I swear!"

"Read it now then. You've got ten seconds."

The darkness within Jack pounded on the bars of its cage to be set free and let it pull the trigger and blow this puke's kneecap into the floor. But he held it back. Bellitto wasn't exactly a spring chicken. Didn't want to lose him to a heart attack or stroke.

Almost had a heart attack himself a moment ago when he'd walked into the office at the other end of the apartment. A small room, no place for a guy Minkin's size to hide, but Jack had checked the storage closet anyway. Empty. On his way out of the room he happened to glance at the sheet of paper lying in the fax machine's tray. His gaze skittered off the handwritten lines as he pa.s.sed, and he was stepping through the door when one of the words he'd seen snagged in his brain, caught like a sheet of newspaper in a fence.

... Westphalen...

With a cry of alarm he'd leaped back to the machine, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the sheet, and read:

Success! The ladys Visa records show a hefty charge to something called Pint-Size Pica.s.sos which turns out to be a summer camp right outside Monticello. I checked and the Westphalen package is there. All it needs is to be picked up and we're in business. A. can handle the job no sweat.

BURN THIS!.

Jack read it again, then a third time, still not believing... Westphalen... Pint-Size Pica.s.sos... that was Vicky. Bellitto and his gang had their sights on Vicky!

How? Why? They couldn't possibly know Vicky's connection to him-they didn't know who he was!

Or did they?

He needed some answers.

Bellitto looked up from the note. "I don't know what this is! I've never seen it before! It must be a mistake!"

"That does it." Pressed the silencer muzzle deeper into Bellitto's knee.

"Jesus, Jack!" Lyle, standing behind Bellitto, staring with wide, sick-scared eyes.

"Hey, I'm reasonable." Didn't want to get into gunplay here and now. Once it got started you never knew where it would take you. But he had to know know. Had a feeling Bellitto was just a nudge away from opening up. "I'll let him choose which knee first."

Bellitto tried to squirm away. "No! Please! You must believe I've never seen it! Check the time at the top! It just came in! The fax had just rung and I was on my way to check it when you stopped me."

Grabbed the sheet and handed it to Lyle-didn't want to take his eyes off Bellitto. "True?"

Lyle squinted at the tiny print, then nodded. "Yeah. Transmission time was a couple of minutes ago." He dropped the note back onto Bellitto's lap. "Why are you all worked up about a package?"

All right. So Bellitto hadn't seen it. That didn't mean he didn't know anything about it. Jack raised the pistol and placed the muzzle over Bellitto's heart.

"Vicky Westphalen-what's she to you?"

Didn't expect Bellitto's reaction-his expression registered genuine shock. He glanced down at the sheet again.

Jack remembered then that Vicky's first name wasn't mentioned in the message. And Bellitto looked confused, as if trying to figure out how Jack knew it.

He doesn't know she's connected to me!

Then how the h.e.l.l-?

Lyle leaned forward, looking at the message again over Bellitto's shoulder. "You mean this is about a kid? A kid you know?" He groaned in revulsion. "This is sick, man! This is really sick!"

Jack was thinking about how there'd be no more coincidences in his life and how this had pushed way beyond sick into vile and ugly.

And then he remembered the cop sniffing around Gia's place, asking about Vicky. Part of Eli's "circle"?

One way to find out.

He waved the fax in front of Bellitto. "This is from your cop friend, isn't it."

Bellitto stiffened and stared at Jack. His eyes answered.

"I know your whole circle, Eli."

Not quite, but the others were secondary. Especially now. He grabbed the tape and slammed it back over Bellitto's mouth.

"I've got to go."

Lyle blinked. "Go? Where?"

"The Catskills. Got to get to that camp and make sure Vicky's all right."

What if this wasn't the only machine this fax went to? Bellitto had talked about his "circle." That could mean any number in addition to Minkin. That was who the "A." probably referred to: Adrian Minkin. He could have received the same fax. Could be on his way now. Maybe picking up fellow members as he goes, like this cop, a whole crew of pervs stalking Vicky.

"You don't have to go!" Lyle said, sounding frantic. "You can call!"

"I know I can, but that's not enough."

He'd call right now, tell the camp Vicky's been threatened, to keep watch on her and not release her to anyone but her mother. Then he'd go up there and sit guard in the woods to make sure no one screwed up.

"But what about this guy? What do we do with him?"

"I'll help you load him into the car. You take him to the house and make the trade. Tell Gia to meet me at the camp and we'll bring Vicky home together." Caught Bellitto staring at him with puzzled eyes. Leaned closer to give him something to think about. "Yeah, that's right, Eli. We're trading you to Tara Portman for someone else." At least Jack hoped they were. "She's waiting at your old buddy Dmitri's house. Got something real special cooked up for you."

That ought to loosen his sphincters.

Now... find a phone. He'd seen one in that little office.

"Be right back," he told Lyle as he started away. He jabbed a finger toward Bellitto. "Don't let him budge an inch."

Lyle nodded. "All right, but hurry. We don't know how much time we've got."

Jack was halfway across the dining room when he heard a sound, caught a blur of motion from the stairs to his left. His guard was down but he managed to raise his hands fast enough and far enough to put the pistol between his head and the fireplace poker swung by a gorilla of a man. The gun spun away through the air. Jack stumbled back, knocking into the dining room table, scattering plates and utensils, then rolled to the side to dodge another two-handed poker swipe from Adrian Minkin.